CERN claims faster-than-light particle measured

[Bosonic]

Source: AP

GENEVA (AP) -- A fundamental pillar of physics - that nothing can go faster than the speed of light - appears to be smashed by an oddball subatomic particle that has apparently made a giant end run around Albert Einstein's theories.

Scientists at the world's largest physics lab said Thursday they have clocked neutrinos traveling faster than light. That's something that according to Einstein's 1905 special theory of relativity - the famous E (equals) mc2 equation - just doesn't happen.

"The feeling that most people have is this can't be right, this can't be real," said James Gillies, a spokesman for the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, outside the Swiss city of Geneva.

Gillies told The Associated Press that the readings have so astounded researchers that they are asking others to independently verify the measurements before claiming an actual discovery.

Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_BREAKING_LIGHT_SPEED?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

[Denninmi]

1. Does this mean we can have warp drive now?

Of course, I'm still waiting for my Mr. Fusion and my Mattel Hoverboard.

[Donnachaidh]

2. Don't you mean your iHoverboard?

After all, Apple seems to monopolize all the cool toys... :rofl:

[Confusious]

13. We already can

If you happen to have a little exotic matter handy, along with enough energy equal to 3 suns.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive

[Denninmi]

24. Ah, that shouldn't be all that hard to come up with.

After all, Marty powered the De Lorean with a banana peel, eggshells, and coffee grounds.

[Autumn Colors]

37. Of course....

and after that first dry run comes "first contact". :)

[Heywood J]

49. I think you meant this one.

"Board their ship! Take everything you can!"

[tridim]

3. Shouldn't this also mean time is running backward local to the particle?

If not, how can we trust any space-time/relativity math?

This would change everything we know about space-time around black holes, for instance.

[Daemonaquila]

7. NO, because it would mean the whole model is screwed.

Which would be awesome. Nothing is more delightful to a physicist than being told that everything he/she ever learned about modern physics is wrong, and the rest of her career will be devoted to starting from scratch.

[tridim]

10. I don't think relativity is completely screwed..

Since our observations confirm most of it. I think maybe our measuring sticks just aren't 100% accurate yet.

There must be more to it than we ever dreamed, which is also awesome.

[Confusious]

14. The inside of the milky way rotates at the same speed

as the outside, instead of doing the swirl like it's going down the drain, which general relativity says should happen,

so yea, our measuring sticks are a little off. Astronomers use dark matter to account for that difference,

[tridim]

25. It's even stranger, because we now know there is a "drain" at the center.

Keep in mind, this is what galaxies actually look like. They are much more than just a spinning disc of stars and dust.

[GOTV]

18. Actually, doesn't relativity really say you can't travel AT the speed of light?

As I remember, at the speed of light the denominator goes to zero, which is undefined, and which is why you can approach the speed of light but not reach the speed of light.

Above the speed of light the formula works again but you may have time going backwards for the particle and the particle having some kind of negative mass - whatever THAT would mean.

We say you can't go FASTER than the speed of light because of the assumption that you have to get TO the speed of light before you can go faster but:

1 - what if it were possible to increase speed in quantum like increments? Perhaps under some condition a particle can go from 99.99999% the speed of light to 100.00001% the speed of light without hitting any speed in between. You'd never be at the impossible 100%.

2 - suppose there is a process that creates particles already going faster than the speed of light. They never existed at any slower speed. The weird thing about that is that the particle could never slow down (Unless #1 was possible)

[EOTE]

22. If you were to go from one speed to another, while bypassing speeds inbetween.

Wouldn't that necessitate infinite acceleration or deceleration? And isn't that impossible on its face?

[tridim]

23. Good points. I love that this observation straddles a REAL zero.

Or a real infinity, depending how you look at it.

Mind blowing stuff, a potential revolutionary discovery.

[Bandit]

33. I thought relativity established the ONLY constant and that is the speed of light

That is what the C stands for in the equation. I guess there is really no such thing if things can go faster...

[tama]

52. In QED

(Quantum electro dynamics) speed of light is not invariant, but statistical result of propability amplitudes.

[gratuitous]

34. How would a faster-than-light particle be observed?

It doesn't exist yet, and by the time it does, it's already gone.

I need a day off.

[Ikonoklast]

19. Time is an artificial construct created by three-dimensional beings

in order to explain their movement through four dimensions.


The other seven dimensions may have something to say about that movement.

[cyberpj]

36. Wow, man... did you think of that or is it a quote? I love it. nt

[CanSocDem]

55. This seems right...

...but clearly incomprehensible to those fundamentalists who think we already know everything there is to know about 'space, time and beyond'.

.

[KeepItReal]

4. Power up the FTL Drive and let's get the frak outta here

:-)

[Desertrose]

5. Cool....

...and now new doors will open.....

[Uncle Joe]

6. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Bosonic.:thumbsup:

[immoderate]

8. When they get there, can they look back and see themselves arriving?

:shrug:
A thought experiment.


--imm

[Beam Me Up]

9. Not exactly. On the way, they see themselves already there.

And they've already left by the time they arrive.

Or something like that.

[immoderate]

11. Sounds like catching up to be done.

--imm

[starroute]

21. I'm reminded of the old limerick

There was a young lady named Bright
Whose speed was much faster than light
She set out one day
In a relative way
And arrived on the previous night

[Uncle Joe]

45. Can we see faster than light?

If we can't, then it seems to me we couldn't see ourselves already there but I was thinking we might see a fleeting mirror image of where we were as our brains and/or vision adjusts.

[Beam Me Up]

47. The light physics studies is not the light we see.

The latter is a neurophenomenlogical response to the former.

[FailureToCommunicate]

12. “Never argue with the data.”

- Sheen ( Jimmy Neutron's friend)

[bongbong]

15. Maybe

Maybe they discovered a fourth type of neutrino having the same spin as currently known ones. And sometimes anti-particles of any type can move backwards in time, so maybe this is just an anti-neutrino.

[A Physicist]

16. 1.000025 times faster?

I’ll keep my powered dry on this one but I have always had an issue with the light-speed barrier thing.

If you look at the Lorentz transformation for a particle with mass, the mass becomes positive infinite approaching the barrier from the right. If we postulate a FTL particle approaching from the left, the mass becomes negative infinite but goes to zero in the far right limit. Strange.

In classical mechanics it is impossible for a particle to overcome an energy barrier if its energy does not exceed the energy of the barrier but in quantum mechanics, particles with energy less than the barrier energy have a finite probability of penetrating the barrier and passing through it. This is called quantum tunneling, it’s how tunnel diodes work and they are built by semiconductor manufacturer’s every day.

[InkAddict]

38. Jetliner meets granite wall, both speeding through our universe -

only appearing stationary at impact - but such a tiny hole in the wall, but where'd it ALL go? - poof! Absorbed into/transported through the wall into another time/universe, a effect of quantum tunnelling. FRINGE is REAL??? Oh my!

[leftyohiolib]

17. maybe it means neutrinos have zero mass. neutrinos sounds like a name for cereal

[AngryAmish]

20. I'm reaching for the bong to digest this news...

[cyberpj]

39. You always do that. & I always watch to see what you come back with. But then you never do.....

LOL.

But I know what you mean. And I love seeing how many physics-ly educated DU posters there are to chime in every time we get some quantum news.

Lots of us never studied but watched lots of SciFi and have learned quite a bit that way.

And from Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson of course
(spaghettification... he taught me that one
and it gives a whole new line of thought to The Flying Spaghetti Monster)
here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNc-JLysk9Y

p.s. - ever see this one with almost every physics scientist on The Discovey Channel?
here:
http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/09/08/7674862-the-nerdiest-catchiest-song-of-the-day-so-far

p.p.s. - did that bong kick in?
are we having fun yet? :hi:

[entanglement]

26. Q. What do you call a superluminal particle? Answer: A mistake

[Old Codger]

27. If everthing is relative

Then any two bodies at speeds equal to say 3/4 the speed of light traveling towards each other are in fact exceeding the speed of light relative to each other aren't they?

[cliffordu]

28. Ow, that hurt.

The only damned thing I understood on this whole thread......

[zonkers]

56. I'm with you.

[entanglement]

29. No. The Newtonian (intuitive) way of simply adding up the speeds is incorrect

but is an excellent (actually, incredible) approximation at speeds much smaller than the speed of light.
Special relativity provides an alternative formula to 'add' the speeds so the result never exceeds the speed of light.

Edit: spelling

[immoderate]

30. No.

If I'm traveling 3/4 of light towards you, then you're traveling at 3/4 the speed of light towards me. :)

--imm

[OneAngryDemocrat]

31. You answered your own question

"...relative to each other aren't they?"

Both bodies are still moving at 3/4 the speed of light.

[Old Codger]

46. Absoluely

Old problem, they are exceeding the speed of light only relative to each other, not relative to anything else, they are still only at whatever speed each is traveling...

[cpwm17]

43. No, they don't travel relative to each other greater than the speed of light

Time slows down or speeds up relative to each other, so the speeds can't be simply added. At high speeds relative to the speed of light physics isn't intuitive - Newton's physics is replaced with Einstein's physics.

[JesterCS]

58. but then you have to also consider

the girl on the train myth. A train traveling at say 185999 miles per second. A girl runs Forward on the train. She SHOULD excede that, but for some reason time slows down to prevent it. At least thats the theory i've heard.

[valerief]

32. I don't think they're neutrinos. I think they're Wall St. fast trades. nt

[Lars77]

35. Fox: CERN proves science cannot be trusted. Evolution is just a theory.

OK i made that up, but how long until someone makes that connection?

[sofa king]

40. A tachyon, perhaps?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachyon

The theoretical tachyon cannot go below the speed of light, and its velocity decreases as its energy increases. They're not supposed to be able to interact with normal matter, if they exist at all.

But since the '80s, some have proposed that neutrinos may be tachyonic in nature.

I don't pretend to know physics any better than the words (not the numbers) that describe it, which makes me a pretty damned poor source to consult. But the tachyon is one of those critters of physics I've followed since I was a science-fiction reading kid.

[cyberpj]

41. "...twelve particles of matter, four forces of nature..." AHHH!!! Get out of my head!

http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/09/08/7674862-the-nerdiest-catchiest-song-of-the-day-so-far

[On the Road]

42. In the Words of I.I. Rabi:

"Who ordered that?"

[Major Hogwash]

44. How are they measuring something that can't be measured using light as their basis?

Are they now saying that e+ is possible? e.1? e.2?
Because you know within a second or two, that means that there is no finite speed!

That blows my mind right there.
But, that's not that hard to do.

[Odin2005]

48. I'm betting somebody just made a mistake.

[girl gone mad]

57. I think so, too.

I read through the pre-print last night and have many questions. Speed of light 'in a vacuum' was mentioned throughout. We can basically discount the index of refraction and use vacuum values for ~30 GeV muon or tauon neutrinos traveling through the earth's crust, but what about the signal to the satellite? Was the medium accounted for? They did not say the measurement is for group velocity or phase velocity. I'd want to see how the instruments were calibrated, look at their algorithms, and verify that consistent assumptions were used, etc.

The claim they are making is extraordinary, not just because it seems to contradict GR, but it also would mean neutrinos behave remarkably differently at these energies than how they are very precisely known to behave at both higher and lower energies.

[fasttense]

50. From the little I know of physics, I suspect that

these subatomic particles such as neutrinos are traveling at a different time than larger bodies. The distortion of the appearance of time relative to our own time may be what is actually being observed here. It's like speeding up a film. If you fast forward a film of someone walking casually along a shopping center, it's as if they are jumping forward.

I think time is much more flexible than we know.

Anyway it's my theory and I'm sticking to it.

[Duppers]

54. You got it

Besides, this paper is not yet peer reviewed.

[tama]

59. It seems

you are on the same page with this physics blogger: http://matpitka.blogspot.com/2011/09/speed-of-neutrino-larger-than-speed-of.html#comments

[Bosonic]

51. The paper is now online at arxiv (pdf format)

http://arxiv.org/abs/1109.4897

Lots of contributing authors, so it's v.unlikely that some obvious mistake was made (or that the data's fake), but they're still cautious that some subtle systematic effect could account for the readings.

[Blue_Tires]

53. How close are they to discovering ludicrous speed?

:crazy: